Coda
by DuchessofSomerset
Summary: As Regina left the diner in a numb haze there was only one place she could think to go. AU in which Zelena is still alive but everything else happened.


Post series-finale. Zelena is alive but everything else happened. Discuss amongst yourselves how that is possible.

* * *

As Regina left the diner in a numb haze there was only one place she could think to go. Once it would have been her father's crypt, to sit amongst the paraphernalia that made her feel powerful, but her mother was there now and the last thing she wanted was to sit next to cold stone knowing Cora Mills would never hold her and stroke her hair again. So she walked to the station instead.

The lights were off and she couldn't help but find a bit unnecessary on Leroy's part. Their foe was defeated, making Zelena sit in the dark was just overkill, but as Regina approached the cell she saw that her sister was curled on her side, head resting on the pillow.

"Zelena?" She said hesitantly. This was stupid, they were hardly _sisters_: up until yesterday they had been trying to kill each other but Zelena was the potential assassin she had the least contempt for and at least her sister wasn't afraid to own up to her actions. It was curious, Regina thought, that she could forgive Zelena's honest attempt to steal her heart for evil, but she wanted to toss Emma Swan up and down Main Street for being a thoughtless, arrogant wretch.

"Are you awake?" She asked quietly, wrapping her fingers around the bars and feeling utterly childish as she tried to peer in to see if the red head was just ignoring her purposefully. Would it have been like this, she wondered, if they'd been raised together? Regina could imagine shared nights of whispered gossip and Zelena's long, strong arms holding her close and she forced herself to focus on the reality of the woman before her.

No one could change the past. Apart from Emma Swan apparently.

"R'gina?"

Regina vanished in a puff of purple and immediately reappeared in the cell, clasping her hands in front of her patiently so as to give Zelena a moment to wake up and compose herself. Her sister pushed mussed curls from her face and sat up, eyes blinking away the vestiges of her sleep as she glared mildly at being awoken. Regina knew she shouldn't feel guilty, Zelena had done wrong after all and deserved to be here, but she knew from bitter experience how sleep could elude you in solitude when thoughts and regrets almost drowned you.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Well obviously you did, or else you wouldn't have done it," Zelena's irritated tone came through the darkness clearly and Regina threaded all her fingers together to keep them from fidgeting. "Has something more happened with my portal?"

"It's over. Emma and Hook fell in but they're back now."

"Back?" Zelena muttered with irritation. "It's only supposed to go one way."

"The laws of magic don't seem to bother Miss Swan much," Regina said with enough bitterness to catch her sister's attention. Heaving a sigh Regina waved her hand, conjuring a fireball to illuminate them both. Had it been anyone else in town Regina suspected the sight of her signature weapon would have made them recoil but Zelena merely blinked in the new light and furrowed her brow.

"Have you come to kill me then?"

"No," Regina admitted wearily, waving her hand so the fireball turned into a brazier in the middle of the room. It was rapidly approaching December and the fools had left _her_ sister here with nothing but a blanket. Before she could become too irritated with imagining the treatment a relative of the Charmings would receive in the same situation she moved to the cot, reaching out to nudge Zelena's legs so her sister would give her space to sit. Without complaint Zelena curled them under herself and Regina felt oddly comforted by the ease of the action – at least they were making a start.

"Why are you here Regina? I doubt it's so we can have a friendly campfire somehow."

"Are you worried I'm going to make you toast marshmallows?"

"I don't know what they are but they sound disgusting."

Regina smiled to herself, the first time she had managed since leaving the diner, and it was immediately followed by a choked sob. Both of them tensed at the sound; Zelena stared at the younger woman in confusion, not knowing quite what to make of the now glaringly obvious fact that Regina had clearly been upset and had come to _her. _No one had ever come to her for anything other than something they wanted and it immediately put her on edge. She could get this really quite catastrophically wrong and then any possibility of a relationship, the sort she had secretly envisioned during the long years of watching her sister's progress, would be destroyed before they had even bothered to try.

Zelena pulled a face at her own train of thought – she'd been in this cell for all of a _day_ and she was already going soft!

"Are you upset that the pirate and the Saviour came back at all?" She sniffed disdainfully and did Regina the favour of not looking as several tears fell. "I know I would be."

"I've learnt to live with their presence," Regina admitted as she pushed herself further onto the cot so her back was propped up by the wall. "But Emma brought somebody else with her apart from Hook. Somebody who was supposed to be dead."

"Why?"

Regina reached up a hand to wipe away the tears on her cheeks. She would have worried that this, this showing weakness in front of Zelena, would come back to bite her but at this point she couldn't bring herself to care – no one knew about disappointment like the woman next to her after all.

"Because she's an idiot who thinks she knows best."

"Well I already knew that. Why did she bring back-" Zelena waved her hand vaguely. "Whoever it was."

"Marian."

Regina waited a beat before realising that the name meant nothing to Zelena. Whilst she had been living through Groundhog Day in Storybrooke, entertaining herself as best she could by reading the stories of this world, her sister had been in Oz doing everything apart from learning the legend of Robin Hood.

"She's Roland's mother," she said in a tight voice, refusing to voice what else the woman was. Thankfully realisation seemed to dawn on Zelena quickly enough, although the red head surprised her by not laughing as Regina had expected her to and instead Zelena propped one of her elbows on the window ledge and leant her head in her hand wearily.

"She's your thief's wife?"

"Yes."

Zelena laughed then, although it was short and bitter and Regina knew it was not at her expense.

"How charming of Emma Swan to finish my task for me."

Regina couldn't help but agree: without intending to, with the same lack of care that her mother had, Emma had robbed her of a great deal of happiness. Henry would always be her only love of course, even Regina's penchant for feeling things deeply wasn't so vast that the thought of her son couldn't penetrate her misery, but for now this heartbreak was going to sting.

"We're you really in love with him?" Zelena asked, in a voice that was entirely different to anything Regina had heard from the other woman; this one was unsure, uttering the word _love_ as though it was in a foreign tongue she didn't understand fully.

"No. But I think I could have been."

Regina turned her head towards the other woman in time to see Zelena nodding in understanding, the light from the fire making her head glow with copper. She looked tired, not the fearsome wicked witch they had fought so ardently and Regina was reminded of the same warm glow that had encased Cora Mills moments before her death. Regina had the perverse urge to tell Zelena about that, tell her about every single aspect of their mother, the good and the bad because though her life was far from worth stealing there had been _some_ good moments with Cora and there must have been _something_ in Oz that hadn't been horrible and perhaps if they shared those things it would make things easier?

Regina didn't speak but she felt something shift between them as they sat quietly, not meeting each other's eye but not quite able to look away either. Instead Regina counted the strands of gold in her sister's hair and Zelena stared at Regina's hand, unsure whether to take it or not.

"Do you want to talk about your _feelings_?" Zelena said suddenly, mocking in her tone that was clearly meant to lighten them both.

"God no," Regina said briskly, raising her palms face out in front of her to punctuate the point. Using the moment she let her right hand fall on top of Zelena's casually, wrapping her fingers around it and squeezing gently. "Thank you for the offer though."

Zelena inclined her head and gave the other woman a small smile as silence fell over them again. The fire roared next to the bed, warming the cell and, by Regina's magic, not the rest of the station; any idiot that came to look in on her sister would probably take it away so Regina, after a moment's thought, waved her free hand idly to make it invisible too.

"Are you hungry?" Regina asked as an afterthought. They had been so concerned with organising the party and then the brief panic over the missing Saviour that Regina doubted anybody had been in the station for hours. Zelena stroked her fingers across her temple before a smirk began to form on her lips.

"Shall we go to the diner sis? I doubt it'd make much difference to my public image if _I _made Emma Swan disappear?"

Regina gave her a chastising look but couldn't help the twitch of her lips. It wasn't right, she knew that perfectly well, but the urge to lash out was still there inside her, no matter how good she tried to be. And it was nice that somebody understood that – anybody else would have gone after Marian, the root of the problem, but her sister probably comprehended better than anyone how unstable and unfocussed rage could be.

"No," she said regretfully. "I don't want to go back, even if it is tempting, and having my sister do my dirty work doesn't make me any better than the Evil Queen."

"I suppose not. And I take it this _second chance_ of mine won't extend to that anyway?"

Regina gave her a pointed look.

"No then." Zelena looked at her with a contemplatively raised eyebrow and shuffled to readjust her legs, pulling the blanket up and over both of their legs without comment. "Aren't you ever _tempted_? All these idiots that have wronged you running around as though they own the place and rallying everyone against you, and you just let them carry on. We both know how easily you could dispose of them."

"You're one to talk," Regina smirked and leaned her head back against the window-frame, eyes never leaving Zelena's. "You had all that time to kill me and didn't."

"I wanted you to suffer."

"I wanted that for Snow White. About 90% of the time. But sometimes I'd think about her and… I don't think I could have ever killed her."

"And based on that you think I _like_ you?"

"No," Regina chuckled to herself, aware that somehow they had ended up sat under a blanket with a roaring fire talking about their _feelings_ somehow. "I think you love me, and that's much worse."

"I've never loved anyone Regina, don't flatter yourself."

Zelena pulled her hand out from under her sister's to fold her arms across her chest petulantly but Regina understood that it was defensive, not aggressive. The older witch didn't shuffle away, despite how close they were sat together now, nor did she pull her blanket away or demand Regina leave her.

"Really?" Regina asked incredulously. "There was never _anyone_?"

Zelena's face was the same mixture of anger and self-loathing it had been right after she'd been defeated and Regina decided not to push; instead she shrugged casually, as though it was of no importance.

"Suit yourself. It's just that you know everything about _my_ life and I don't even know if you have a last name."

Zelena contemplated her for a long moment, the rage on her face lessening as a battle was fought behind her eyes. Eventually, the red head sighed, as though she was being forced to talk rather than offering something willingly.

"Cutter. My father was the woodcutter so… Cutter. Mother died when I was ten so I looked after him," she recalled in a quiet voice, eyes fixed on Regina's shoulder. "And I had magic, so _accidents_ happened around the village. I wasn't well thought of."

"You had it all your life?"

Zelena laughed humourlessly.

"Even when I was a baby according to _him._ It frightened him and he hated me for it." She sighed and spoke in a sudden rush, as if determined to get through it now she'd started, her eyes moving to the fire as she shifted again, sitting next to Regina now, close enough that their arms brushed. "Between looking after that drunken fool and trying to keep us fed there wasn't time for love. Then I went to Oz and found out about you and that took over my life."

"Snow and David said-"

"And what the hell would _they_ know?!"

"They met Glinda," a blind man would have seen how much Zelena tensed at that name so Regina certainly caught it. "And she said she was a friend of yours."

"We weren't," Zelena said shortly and Regina didn't believe her for a second. "We were acquaintances briefly."

"That's just sad," Regina nudged her sister's arm with her own. "Even I had _one_ friend."

"Maleficent?" Off Regina's surprised look Zelena rolled her eyes. "I spent all my time watching you Regina, and even if I didn't she was known throughout worlds."

"She _was_ extremely powerful I suppose. And I think she'd have got a kick out of you actually."

"Why didn't you bring her here?"

Regina smiled sadly and leaned in towards Zelena, perilously close to leaning her head on the nearby shoulder.

"Because I knew I couldn't do what I thought I needed to do if I had that little voice hovering around, telling me what a mistake I was making. So I punished her for being my friend and locked her up."

Zelena tensed again and slowly turned to look at her and Regina knew precisely why Glinda the Good had been banished and who had done it. She had speculated before with Snow and David of course, but the two idiots had thought Glinda and Zelena to be old adversaries – Regina knew better. You kept your enemies in sight, but the people you hid away were the ones you couldn't bear to face.

"Did you love her?"

"Maleficent?" Zelena nodded. "No, not like that anyway. She was a good friend, but we would have destroyed each other."

"I would have destroyed Glinda," Zelena said quietly, taking the initiative with a sigh, as though Regina was being foolish, and reaching up a hand to gently urge her sister's dark head towards resting against her shoulder. "For what it's worth Regina, you're right."

"About what?" Regina asked distractedly, more tears starting to form from the soft touch to her hair from somebody with the same hands as their mother. "You love me?" She laughed as her eyes began to blur.

"Loving someone is worse than liking them."

Regina nodded in agreement and shuffled closer, her body turning and curling towards her sister's naturally, as though they had been doing it all their lives. If they had though Zelena wouldn't have needed their mother's most basic of lessons:

"Love is weakness."


End file.
